Terry Semel faces harch criticism from Yahoo! shareholders

Today, Yahoo! (NASDAQ: YHOO) will have its annual shareholders meeting and CEO Terry Semel's compensation will likely be an issue.

Yahoo!'s glory has been getting trounced on lately, even as the company apparently sees good results from its recent launch of Project Panama. Project Panama, the company's new advertising system, intended to compete with Google (NASDAQ: GOOG), is still not getting any kind of good press. Meanwhile, Google expands its leading position and the internet media darling keeps anything and everything Yahoo! out of the limelight. That is, until it comes to the compensation of Yahoo!'s CEO, Terry Semel. He's getting paid way too handsomely for what many consider lackluster performance. And, it's only going to get worse before it gets any better.

YHOO shares have languished around the $30 level for some time now, and things are just not falling Yahoo!'s way, especially when it comes to competing with Google and a newly-resurgent Microsoft as well. Add to that CEO Terry Semel's brash claims three years ago that Yahoo! would remain the internet's brightest star along with Semel's recent pay and it's not hard to see why the CEO is in the hot seat.

Will 2007 see the end of Semel as Yahoo!'s illustrious leader? In all estimations, it will. Yahoo! has lost its shine this year as Google has completely eclipsed it, and the company's "wandering" status -- even as it continues to make a decent pile of cash each quarter -- is not sitting well with shareholders who see Yahoo! as a laggard while other companies race past it. If Semel does go this year, there will be two responsible people: Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin.